If Only
by donalgraeme
Summary: Naruto, in his golden years, winds up back in the past from a sealing accident. With the foresight of a time traveler, and the restraint of a cranky old man, watch what he does to his past self and those around him.
1. Chapter 1

**Yeah… this is really just something to pass the time. Don't expect too much.**

* * *

The Uzumaki clan of Hidden Whirling Tide was renowned both for their natural genius at fuinjutsu and their long life spans. Prodigies seemed to be hereditary among the ranks of the small-ish clan. As one could imagine, inherent mastery at the most difficult, most dangerous of the ninja arts, combined with a longevity that increased the retirement age by twenty years, made the clan more than a few paranoid/jealous enemies.

Naruto Uzumaki, of course, didn't learn about any of this until he was already ass-deep in alligators. I mean, really. Complete control of the Kyuubi's chakra, a fanatical estranged friend hell-bent on destroying his home, the killer of his family plotting to capture and kill him; your lineage becomes background noise amongst all that.

Well, all of those things eventually died down. Uchiha Madara was killed in an epic battle, appropriately at the Valley of the End. His many-times grandson was eventually returned to Konoha, with a broken spine and both his eyes ripped out. The Shichidaime Hokage visits him in the ANBU prison occaisionally.

Yup, you heard right. Naruto finally did it. After all the dust settled, the Daimyo held another council to decide the new Hokage, this time without Danzo's mind-control. The man decided that Naruto's actions were those of the most honorable, pure-hearted young man he'd ever met. More chakra than anyone on the Elemental Continent, half a dozen S-ranked victories under his belt, an unyielding dedication to his friends and village, plus those gosh-darn cute looks, and it was an open-shut case.

Surprisingly, the citizens of Konoha had no problem with this. Apparently, having your ass dragged out of the fire by the same person three times in a row makes it hard to hold a grudge. After the public announcement of Naruto's ascension, which included the truth of his heritage, the villagers were falling over themselves to forgive him and praise him.

So the story had a happy ending. Naruto ruled for many years, fostering friendship and peace across the continent. No one ever mistook him for a weakling, though; any and all who tried to threaten his village were lucky if there were ashes left to bury. He married Hinata, resolved the strife of the Hyuuga clan, passed the reigns to Konohamaru, and finally settled back to grow old in peace.

Over the years, Naruto got more and more interested in the world of sealing. As his limbs began to weaken and his senses start to dull, he became more and more focused on matters of the mind. Except for the affairs of the bedroom, if the literal dozen balls of sunshine in his house were any indications.

The Kyuubi's regeneration combined with the resilience of his mother's line practically doubled Naruto's lifespan from that of a healthy human's. Hinata eventually passed away, as did the rest of the Konoha 12. Naruto mourned their losses, but he didn't obsess over it. He knew that one day he too would die, and when he did his friends and family would be right there on the other side waiting for him.

More years passed, until Naruto was easily the oldest person in Konohagakure. The Technology Revolution had long since swept the world by then, so he lived in comfort. The very nature of Shinobi had changed by then. Though the 'old ways' were still practiced, they were largely ignored in favor of such awesome weapons as 'guns', 'computers', and 'missiles'. War had turned cold, fought in courtrooms and the mind than in real life. However, even as towering giants of steel and glass popped up, the Hokage Monument remained unchanged, a constant reminder of the days of the past.

On his 162nd birthday, though a stranger would place him at no more than eighty, Naruto eased himself out of bed. The symphony of snaps, crackles, and pops (which secretly explained his aversion to breakfast cereal) was a familiar routine by now. He had finally yielded to his eldest daughter (145) and her demands that he start using a cane, though she herself disdained such tools.

Naruto lived on his own under his own power. He had an amazing amount of muscle and energy for someone his age, though the days of being the angel of women's secret dreams were long over. His hair fell to his mid-back, still bright gold at the tips, though it went through the spectrum of aging until it was pure white about an inch from the roots. He remained clean-shaven, because Hinata said she liked his whiskers. His eyes had a slightly milky tint to them, which might explain why he had trouble telling all relatives past his great-great-grandchildren apart.

Naruto grinned happily as he slowly cooked his breakfast. It was ramen. Some things never change, though in his defense, it was a brand-new low-calorie brand that was actually pretty decent in terms of healthy eating.

As Naruto ate, he checked the screen built into his table. It informed him that it was his youngest descendant's birthday as well and he was expected there at noon. Naruto chuckled. _'Ah, my dear Hinata-chan, I wonder if you ever once pictured the day we'd visit our great-great-great-great-grandchild on their fourth birthday.'_

Naruto left the dishes to clean themselves. Though he had bent to the demands of the times and allowed his entire home to be configured with the new-fangled gizmos, he still lived in the same house he and Hinata had bought over a century before. This meant that his office still held all the materials that had slowly accumulated over two lifetime's worth of research.

Naruto woke with the dawn these days, and he had plenty of time to work on his latest project before calling for a shuttle. It may have been several generations since his term in office, but the people of Konoha still held great respect for the retired Hokage, always smiling and waving on the streets, always offering him complimentary services. Naruto felt a bit overwhelmed by the whole system, even after so long to get used to it. Still, it proved useful.

The old man continued to examine and tweak his newest experiment. In layman's terms, it was a seal that would, within a controlled environment, allow him to examine objects in all ten dimensions. Naruto had turned into quite the scientist, though it was really a hobby now these days.

Naruto glanced at the clock. _'Hmm, it's getting close to noon. Gazera will kill me if I'm late.'_ Naruto took a minute to chuckled at the irony of who his great-great-great-grandchild-in-law, the mother of little Ara-kun, was. _'You always complained about troublesome women, Shikamaru. Now you have a woman more hot-headed and childish than Anko and I combined as a descendent.'_

Naruto took one more look at the seal. _'Bah, I'm old. I can indulge a little. One test run, then I'm off to the party.'_

Naruto's chakra deserves, quite frankly, could have powered the city for a full week. They had been monstrous on their own, had nearly tripled when the Kyuubi's reserves had combined with his, and they had only continued to grow from there as he produced more and more mental energy for the mixing pot. Add that to more than enough time to practice towards control, and Naruto now could unleash more juice than the Juubi could.

Hence, it was no challenge at all to activate the seal which required low-Kage levels of energy to function. Time and space began to warp under the influence of the seal, the very cornerstones of existence twisting and bending. Nature hadn't intended that at all and of course there were consequences.

Naruto regarded the wormhole that had torn itself from the fabric of reality just a few feet in front of him. "Well… shit." And then Naruto got sucked in.

* * *

Naruto blearily opened his eyes. That, in itself, was good news. "Okay, mental note, _never_ fuck around with the foundations of the universe again, you senile old lump of fox crap!"

The ground underneath him was soft earth, not the asphalt and concrete that had become so popular. Naruto, in a slight daze, couldn't tell anything about the light other than the fact it was green.

Naruto shook his head as he shakily got to his feet. He absently noted he was naked and his cane was nowhere in sight. Typical. He looked around, his mind already clearing. He wasn't a veteran Kage for nothing. His eyes swept the terrain with the effortless ease of a natural skill honed to the point it was reflex. His mind was ready for anything, be it a jungle of dinosaurs or the surface of Polyphemus II.

Compared to those scenarios, the gates of Konoha as they were a century and a half ago, the mountain behind bearing only four faces instead of twenty-two, shouldn't have been that big of a shock. And yet they were.

"Shukaku's dusty balls! What the hell!"

Well, he was old. He wasn't only an experienced killer when he made the effort to be. And really, getting sucked into something that made Kamui look like a kid playing dress-up and popping up back in the times of your glory days just isn't something you can possibly prepare for.

Naruto was so shocked to be where he was, he didn't notice the presences behind him until a loud yell entirely too familiar to the old man broke the silence.

"Ewwwwwwwwww, Kakashi-sensei! Why is that old man naked in the woods?"

Naruto slowly turned around, making sure to keep his emotions in check. Couldn't have a heart attack here, could he? That would be far too embarrassing a way to die. When he saw the four people behind him, he had trouble deciding whether he wouldn't prefer that quick escape.

Team 7 faced him. Sakura when she was still that twittering school-girl with a debilitating crush. She seemed to be attempting suicide through willful aneurysm, if her growing blush was any indication. Naruto felt a slight breeze caress his privates. Ah. Naruto vividly remembered the bloodstains on the walls and ceiling after his and Hinata's honeymoon. Naruto was still convinced that that nosebleed had broken a few unofficial records and remained untouched since. The young woman had proven to be a female version of Jiraiya, just better hidden. It's always the quiet ones, after all.

Sasuke, considerably less Emo, more ambulatory, and slightly less arrogant than the last time Naruto had seen him on his deathbed. The last 'loyal' scion of the Uchiha was staring at him as if his very existence was an insult to him, wearing the blue top and khaki shorts get-up he'd worn when they'd first been formed. Kakashi was there as well, looking very healthy and full of energy. Well, at least compared to how he was after Anko dragged him into a shotgun wedding. The poor sap had no idea of what was coming. BDSM freaks wept with both joy and envy when they heard what the snake mistress had in store for the Copy-nin.

And finally, there was his younger self. He was still rudely pointing right at him, his eyes closed in childish anger. Naruto felt the urge to gag when he saw the attire he had worn when he was 12. Kill-me-orange _and_ blinding blue. Really, what _had_ he been thinking at that age?

Kakashi looked up from his little orange book, unaware of the acts with a violet-head in his impending future that would make even those fictional athletes beg for mercy. "Maa, maa. Sir, I know that it is none of my business what you do with your time, but could you perhaps have done something other than streaking a few yards from the main road? I'm fairly certain that that breaks a few laws."

Old Naruto stared at the figures straight from his distant past for a full minute, before bringing a hand up to pinch his nose. _'You just HAD to test out that seal, didn't you?'_

* * *

Since the decommissioning of the Uchiha Police Force due to obvious reasons, any and all crimes had to be evaluated by the Hokage. It was one of many loop-holes Danzo and Sarutobi's old teammates had slipped into the works in order to tie the Sandaime up in paperwork and keep him out of the way. It was one of many flaws that Tsunade had to fix. Naruto had had his fair share with cleaning up after Danzo.

Old Naruto stood with a slight hunch in the 'mission room', thankfully covered with a blanket that Kakashi kept in a scroll. The thing smelled of lust and dog, which shouldn't have surprised the ex-Hokage. He tried to keep his mind off what acts Kakashi had done on lonely cold nights with this blanket as he pieced together what happened to him.

The seal had gone wrong. Badly. In retrospect, Naruto was happy he hadn't just blown reality to little pieces. As it was, he had apparently fallen through the rabbit hole approximately 150 years into the past and about 2 kilometers east. Once again, Naruto felt lucky he hadn't wound up in outer space.

Of course, this raised the question of what he was going to due with the new hand fate had dealt him. Neji had gotten to the blond after numerous philosophy discussions later in the Hyuuga's life. Naruto, however, maintained that fate was fickle and could be influenced to decide based on the actions of those she watched over.

The reminiscing didn't prevent Naruto from listening in on every conversation in the room. From the random chatter among the room combined with the formal report Kakashi was making to Sarutobi, the Shichidaime had already concluded that he had appeared right after the Wave mission, just as Team 7 was coming back, in fact.

Old Naruto held in a chuckle at the antics of his younger counterpart once the subject of Zabuza came up. _'Geez, I was brash this early on.'_ The elder of the two incarnations tuned out the other as he focused on the Sandaime, whom he was perfectly aware was regarding him with the same subtle intensity.

Sarutobi Hiruzen looked like Old Naruto's lazy, lackadaisical cousin. His face was almost permanently creased with smile lines that almost outnumbered the frown lines. Liver spots abounded all visible skin, and he held himself with a careful posture that hinted at much greater pains of age than those Naruto suffered, though he was technically twice as old. If there was a pageant for old men, Naruto would have obliterated Sarutobi in the first round.

Naruto had barely thought of the 'old' man for over half a century. He had just faded away, a small, warm memory from his early childhood, nothing more. Like Haku, he'd left his mark, but Naruto had collected a lot of such marks over the decades.

Naruto continued to keep half an ear on the report as he considered the nature of his existence here. Would his actions alter the timeline and give him the cosmic eraser, or was he from an alternate timeline and thus merely an outside influence? Kind of hard to tell, considering that his was the first experience of its kind. Even if it wasn't, it would be kind of hard to find records of such accounts, eh?

The report wound down, and Hiruzen nodded with approval to Team 7. "Excellent, excellent. You three have proven that even in times of great trouble, the power of teamwork and the love for your comrades pulled you through. You have my praise. The mission has been upgraded to A-rank, and the records and pay will reflect this. I look forward to your future success. Dismissed."

Naruto waited until the genin had left through the door and Kakashi had Shunshined to who knows where. "I recognize the need to uphold an image and bolster morale, but that level of patriotic glorifying either goes right through a young child's head or inflates it to the level they think they can take on A-rank criminals blindfolded."

Sarutobi's eyes snapped to Naruto, the gentle exterior disappearing. Conversation in the room stopped as the air seemed to grow a few degrees cooler. "You are hardly in a position to criticize, stranger. This has got to be he worst infiltration attempt I've ever heard of. Who sent you?"

Naruto met Hiruzen's eyes unflinchingly, the fraying angles of his face setting into stone. The tension in the air seemed to increase tenfold as the wills of the two old warriors clashed. They weren't even using killing intent, but the atmosphere was tight as violin strings. One of the administrative Chunin forgot to breath.

"Let me guess what you're thinking," Naruto said, settling into the cool calm he used when a battle was a hair-trigger away. "Sixty plus, 180 lb, knows how to handle himself. Came in on streaking charges, obviously a weirdo. You notice a series of quirks as you listen to the little Genin's report. Eyes aren't roving around. No twitches to shift weight. Slight twitching of the pinnae, as if using advanced hearing. And most importantly, no fluctuations in chakra, despite the fact that even a civilian's spikes mildly. You reach the conclusion that he is a spy, a retired ninja sent by another village to become a plant, under the pretense of becoming a citizen. Only the attempt is obviously staged, an amateur's job, it must be one of the minor villages. Right now, you're listening to my analysis, acknowledging the skill and experience needed to place yourself in another's head, and rule out Hoshigakure and Takigakure. Kusagakure is a likely option, as they have shown hostility in the past. You're final assessment is that I am a retired Jonin from Amegakure, trying to frame Kusa by my 'admission'. Unless I'm a missing-nin, in which case you have no idea of guessing my motives. You are going to signal the ANBU in the northwest corner to detain me… now, while the back-up she called for during my lecture make their way here. ETA, seventy-two seconds."

As Naruto talked, Hiruzen's face steadily got harder and more panicked as his entire thought process was spelled out in perfect detail. The instant Naruto had said 'missing-nin'; Sarutobi grabbed the kunai in his robes. He did indeed signal the ANBU in the room exactly where Naruto said.

The ANBU operative lunged forward, her standard-issue blade already being drawn for a quick strike. Naruto, with a level of speed and control that would make many Hyuuga seem clumsy, dodged to the left a quarter second before the ANBU reached him. In the same movement, a gnarled hand flew up to pinch the nerve cluster at the back of her neck. Lynx collapsed to the ground without a sound.

Naruto's eyes had never left the Sandaime's.

The Chunin in the room were frozen. They were paper-pushers, secretaries. They'd gone on a few missions, but all the bad guys had radiated their intentions to do harm. Enemy shinobi had K.I., bandits had bloodlust, and even corrupt executives had soulless greed. This, the terrible efficiency of the old man who gave away nothing, freaked them out more than if he'd hurled lightning around the room.

Naruto kept a hand clutched on the blanket. "A reasonable reaction, old Hokage, but short-sighted. For all you know, I'm a time-traveling Kage here to fight your battles for you. Besides, I'm wearing nothing but this blanket. If I have to deal with the two squads approaching, it might fall off. I personally don't feel that anyone here deserves that kind of trauma."

Hiruzen was now officially on high alert. This man was dangerous, capital D-A-N-G-E-R-O-U-S. There was no hesitance in his eyes, no flickers of indecision. There was only that implacable calm. There were only two explanations. First, insanity. The guy honestly didn't view him as a threat due to a twisted worldview. Second, the guy didn't see him as a threat because his own level far surpassed his. Hiruzen glanced at his downed elite, and felt a sinking feeling it was the latter.

Naruto grinned; no. He showed his teeth, barring them in a predator's smirk. God, he was having more fun playing with his 'grandpa' then he'd had chasing his grandkids around the amusement park. The thrill of the knife's-edge soared through his veins, so long away that it was almost unfamiliar, and all the more a rush for the rediscovery.

"Hokage-san, let's be reasonable. I literally have more chakra than you had in your prime in my right hand, along with control that would make Tsunade feel like an academy student. I have offered no direct threat. We can settle down and chat like men our ages should, or we can see how embarrassing reports of ANBU falling to an old man are."

As Naruto finished, the room was suddenly filled with black. Masks of every description of woodland critter covered the faces of Konoha's elite. All of them were poised to attack the old veteran, who regarded their numbers with a detached amusement. Naruto decided to give a bit of a show, and relaxed the vice-grip he habitually kept his chakra ever since it exceeded the Ichibi's levels by about a quarter.

The old man seemed to burst into fire, there was so much chakra. It flooded the room, burning with a clear, piercing blue light that could probably be seen from a mile away. It was enough chakra to summon Gamabunta ten times over. Any ninja worth the name within a hundred miles felt that massive spike of chakra. It was a sheer heart-stopping, life-flashing kind of display of power, the kind that long ago had made mortals fall in abject worship and fear of those that displayed such energy. It was power worthy of a god.

The men and women in the room, ANBU or otherwise, tried and failed the urge to collapse. Only the highest among the ANBU and the Sandaime managed it. All others fell to the ground, struck dumb by the unstoppable flood of energy, as terrifying and primal as Atlas's shrug.

The thing that had Hiruzen almost losing control of his bowels was the fact that every drop of that chakra was _under complete restraint!_ That release of chakra could and should have leveled the entire tower, seal defenses within the walls or not. And yet it was contained within a perfect sphere around this stranger. That level of power and control… it simply could not be human. Minato, the strongest ninja in history, would have been like a genin going through the bell test if he ever faced this _being_. The old Sarutobi was coming very close to dying of shock.

Naruto rolled his shoulders, working out a few kinks. "Ah, it feels good to relax a bit. So, what's it going to be, Old Hokage?"

Panicked, one of the ANBU forgot all of his training and flung a kunai right at Naruto's head.

Sarutobi's eyes widened. _'Fool, there's no way that will work! You've signed your own death warrant! How…'_

Everything stopped as the kunai hit its mark. Naruto grinned. And went up in a puff of smoke.

Sarutobi felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead, feeling as if someone had pulled the rug out from under his feet in a dark room. _'That much power, that much skill. And it was a Kage Bunshin. He could be anywhere!'_

The Sandaime spoke, his voice slightly shaking as he attempted to lay order in the shocked haze of the mission room. "ANBU, I want every inch of the village scoured until you find that man. Treat him with extreme caution. Capture if at all possible, but react with extreme prejudice. Go!"

* * *

Naruto blinked as the memories of his Kage Bunshin flowed into his mind. The action might once have felt strange, but by now it was as natural as breathing. He wasn't 'Konoha's One Man Army" for nothing. Personally, the aging Jinchuuriki felt that there was nothing funnier then the sight of an enemy army once they watch one man become thousands of Rasengan-wielding, Sage-powered suicide bombers. That last one had led to his other nickname, "Kami's Demolitionist".

Seriously. Picture thousands of clones, formed at a thought, all of whom can explode with the force of five bomb tags… if you aren't curdled into the fetal position shivering, then you are too much of a pyro for your own good.

Naruto shrugged as he walked into a clothing store. He was in a Henge in which he was clothed, so he drew no odd stares.

Naruto quickly found, tried, and decided on an outfit not unlike the one he had lost. He had a grey gi top, loose black pants, and sandals that were practically slippers. He Shunshined out of the changing room, so there was no issue of paying with no money.

Naruto appeared in the Forest of Death, always a favorite haunt of his. Really, once you reach a certain level, it becomes less a pit of nightmares and more a park that never gets dull. With barely a hand sign to concentrate, Naruto formed a staff of stone to use as a cane.

Finding a comfortable spot to sit down, and sending one of the giant tigers running with its tail between its legs as a message to the creatures of the forest, Naruto sat down and began to meditate.

It didn't take any time to reach his mindscape. Over the years it had slowly morphed from a sewer, representing the dark, muddied nature of his mind, into a massive garden full to bursting with life. Trees that made the giants of the physical forest around him seem like twigs, flowers of, quite literally, every bloom and shade imaginable. Naruto moved briskly through the happy treks of his mind, briefly pausing to savor the images of a significant memory in the pools frequently found.

Eventually, Naruto reached the Kyuubi. It resembled nothing more than a dog stuck in a cage two sizes too small. The fact that the cage was made up of interlocking traditional gates only added to the weirdness. Blood-red eyes too tired to be malevolent opened and tracked Naruto's approach.

"**Hello, fleshling. I'm guessing you want to know what in hell's name happened with that seal."**

Naruto shrugged as he sat down cross-legged, his staff planted in the space between his legs and leaning against his shoulder. "Considering that I toyed with the primordial forces of the universe, I figured I'd ask a primordial demon on the specifics."

The Kyuubi sighed. After more than a century trapped inside a being with no hatred for him to feed off of, it'd lost the will to be contrary for the sheer sake of being a demon. **"Basically, you threw boiling water on ice with that stunt of yours. The past 150 years just… never happened. Since you were at ground zero, you managed to land in the world proper, but basically everything else got wiped clean. You are now a relic of a future that will never happen."**

Naruto nodded. "Hmm, well this is a heck of a birthday present. I get to be the puppeteer who silently changes the course of the future. The irony is that it isn't out of some megalomaniacal urge; it's because I have nothing else to do. Inamaru would laugh himself to death."

The Kyuubi grinned. Well, it was always grinning, but it lost its malevolent edges. **"Ah, the youngest of your litter. That boy showed true potential as a prankster. He reached it when he surpassed you in the realm of tricks. Remember when he spiked the water supply with vodka and remodeled the town into a bunch of storybook houses in one night? Everyone was still convinced they were drunk for hours after they finally managed to get sober!"**

Naruto grinned. "I never really found out how he did that. My boy had a gift."

The Kyuubi chuckled, before focusing on Naruto intently. It was its version of putting on a game face. **"Let's stop reminiscing and get to why you **_**really**_** came here, eh?"**

Naruto sighed. "Fine, I'll come out with it. Frankly, I am sick of being old. It was okay when I had all my young kin, but now they only exist in my memories. I don't want to go insane while waiting for all the major stuff to happen, so I'm asking you straight: is there a way to turn back my age?"

The Kyuubi grinned wider. **"As you know, my chakra sustains you by burning off weakness, such as injuries. However, even without my will poisoning the chakra, it is still fundamentally a force of destruction. I made your cells stronger and healthier with each usage, but I burned through the number of times they can copy to do so. If it weren't for the increased number of copies that the Uzumaki clan has, you'd have burned out at 120. At this point, any attempts to burn age out of your cells would burn through the number of copies you have left. Rather counterproductive, eh?"**

Naruto raised an overgrown brow. "You are a force of nature. Even locked inside my family for three generations, you still have that link to the world. What method would work?"

The Kyuubi grinned like the creature it pretended to be. **"Thinking outside the box. Par for the course with you. Yes, there is a natural method to reverse age; that 'Fountain of Youth' myth didn't get started by itself. However, the process would require a pure heart, the ability to draw in Natural Energy, and enough stamina to form and hold an Oodama Rasengan for six hours straight."**

Naruto threw back his head and laughed a full belly laugh that made the air around him literally glow with mirth. "In other words, it is custom-made for me. I take back everything I ever said about you, Neji, cause if this ain't fate then nothing is!"

Kyuubi laughed to itself. **"And why, **_**exactly**_**, do you want to not be old, kit?"**

Naruto took that remark in good grace; compared to an immortal being, he was still a child. He'd learned enough humility to admit to that. "Aside from the daily aches and pains vanishing? Isn't that enough?" Here, Naruto's eyes got a far-off look. "Besides, there are plenty of women in my life who never had anyone love them. If I get to change the future, and reclaim my youth, then I'm starting with that."

The Kyuubi snorted. **"Aren't you supposed to remain faithful to your lavender goddess, remain pure of heart even in the face of outright seduction?"**

Naruto gave the fox a level look. "My bed has been cold for nigh on seventy years now, and all my family who filled the void are gone. Now I have a chance to give all the women I know the kind of devotion and affection that I gave my Hinata-chan that they obviously deserve."

Kyuubi's grin widened further, until it seemed to split his face. **"Did I honestly just here you use your long, **_**very**_** successful marriage to justify having a harem with all the females in your life who never had anyone?"**

Again with the level look. "I had twelve, count them, _twelve_ children. Even taking into account Hinata-chan's appetites, that is a whole lot of virility right there. Considering I can think of four or five different women off the top of my head that died alone, I feel it my duty as their friend to give them the joys of family when it's within my power to do so."

The Kyuubi leered at Naruto, a mixture of amusement and sardonic weariness on its face. **"I'd call you a lustful, self-justifying pervert like your sensei if I didn't know for a fact that you mean every word. As it is, you are going to have those women eating out of your hands. Which ones are they again?"**

Naruto focused. "Let's see. Sakura had Lee, Ino got Sai, Temari whipped Shikamaru, Ayame fell for Chouji, Tenten finally bagged Neji, Hanabi and Moegi had to share Konohamaru because of the CRA, Shizune seized Iruka eventually… along with the obviously taken or exempt, that leaves at this time Hana, Konan, Yugito, Shion, Koyuki…"

"**Stop there!"** The Kyuubi yelled. It might understand human relationships even less then it understood advanced quantum physics, but even it knew that was a bit much. **"A hard-ass Alpha female, an S-ranked origami chick, the container of the 'Hellcat', a holy priestess and banisher of demons, and the Daimyo of Snow/Spring? Any one of them would be as bad as your first mate, and you want to take on all of them? Are you insane? Even I would have trouble replacing your nuts if they get torn off."**

Naruto sighed. "One, I was married to the woman who could have sold Jiraiya out of business had she taken up the pen. Not only that, but every single teacher I have had, including some of the females, have been perverts in one way or another. It was bound to rub off sooner or later. Two, I am probably the only man alive who could match any of them. The only thing that turns on an Alpha female is an Alpha male who can dominate her, which solves Hana and to some extent Yugito. Konan is practically devout to peace, and I _am_ light incarnate after all. As for Shion, she practically hired me in the first place to get a child off her; I was just too blunt at the time to catch the hint. Koyuki, likewise, already had a bit of a crush on me after I saved her country, if all those invitations to movie premieres were any indication."

Only here did a small hint of lust appear on Naruto's face. "Plus, you're forgetting that I didn't figure out the Chi Bunshin until Hinata and I had started 'slowing down'. Armed with that knowledge, I could probably satisfy every woman in Hi no Kuni."

The Kyuubi shrugged a rather difficult motion in its super tight cage. **"Bah, who am I to complain? It just means more interesting memories to peruse through. I must say, the number of ways you fleshlings find to mate is fascinating."**

Naruto didn't blush. Blushing is for those embarrassed by their actions. Naruto knew he could give these women love to spare, no matter how large their appetites. There was no reason to have shame in that.

"Back to the subject at hand. What's the secret to regaining my youth?"

The Kyuubi's eyes went out of focus a bit, as if focusing on a far-off memory. **"On top of the highest mountain in what you call Kaminari no Kuni, there is a garden. Find it, reach it, and I'll tell you more when you get there."**

Naruto nodded, before loosening his concentration. In an instant, he was back in the real world.

Facing Mitarashi Anko.

The twenty-something, as per usual, was wearing what at first glance far too little clothing, at second a carefully considered ploy. Much like the Oiroke no Jutsu, Anko's wardrobe was designed to throw people, giving her enough time to lunge in for the kill. If he didn't already know she had her eye on a one-eyed wolf, Naruto might have considered her. But no, he wasn't quite that depraved and/or desperate.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the only reason you haven't had your snake bite me is because you aren't sure whether I'm just mentally disturbed and wandered in by accident." Naruto calmly reached behind his neck and grabbed the small viper by the mouth. A small effort later, and it dispelled as its brain matter was crushed.

Anko, deprived of her daily dango due to a shipping delay, was already in a cranky mood. When the old geezer went and killed her summon, she didn't even consider the level of skill needed to do that. So she flung her kunai at him. On a whim, Naruto let it skim his cheek. Anko appeared behind him, the kunai at his neck, his blood beading along the blade.

"Listen to me you old fuck, I am in a very bad mood. So you are going to follow me out of my little garden so I don't have to deal with all the paperwork surrounding your death. The choice you have is whether you leave conscious or dragged by your balls." Anko absent-mindedly licked the blood, her sadistic instincts kicking in. She immediately froze.

Naruto sighed as he slowly got to his feet. Anko remained unmoving as a tidal wave roared down her taste buds and down her spine, sending sub-zero chills throughout her body. With the level of chakra infused into his blood, it was akin to licking a live transformer.

Naruto slowly turned to the woman. He gently tapped her on the forehead. She fell over unconscious, her mind still on sensory overload from the taste of his blood. Naruto slowly turned towards the northeast, towards Kumo. "Well, I'll be back ten decades ago. Don't miss me too much." With that, Naruto took a step and disappeared.

* * *

Naruto had, half out of a desire to get more power to protect his village, but mostly out of boredom, taken the effort to master all five elements. He had nothing but time to practice after retirement, and with Kage Bunshin he could cram ten years of practice into a mere week.

Experimenting with combining the elements, Naruto had stumbled onto one of the greatest scientific discoveries of his time. Everyone knew the earth was magnetic, but Naruto was the one who found the electromagnetic fields that held everything in sync. Upon further research, Naruto had discovered a technique, not even a full jutsu that put the Hiraishin to shame.

The Hiraishin, in essence, involved attaching your body to a light wave, which would bounce among the various seals that made the network until it reached the one the user intended. This is what gave Namikaze Minato the illusion of instant teleportation. He had literally been moving at the speed of light. It was actually sheer dumb luck that he had made the seal in such a way that he wouldn't turn into a lump of radioactive molecules.

Naruto's idea was more akin to geomagnetic roller-skates. By combining lightning and earth natured chakra and focusing it to his feet, Naruto could skim across the electromagnetic field of the earth. The effect was akin to mythical seven-league boots. Naruto would take a single step, and move miles with that movement. He actually went so fast that he phased right through physical matter. It had taken years of constant practice _with_ Kage Bunshin to get the knack of it and to stop falling into the ocean. (Note: I would like to thank the author of _The Raikage_ for having the idea for Shunpo, which I used as a springboard for this idea. I do not claim to own the idea.)

As such, it took less time to reach the mountains of Kaminari no Kuni than it had taken to walk from the gates to the Hokage Tower. Naruto stopped his travel and looked up. And up and up. He had stopped on a dime right at the base of the mountain Kyuubi had spoken of. Everest in our world would have looked like a small hillock compared to this monster. It looked like a pillar soaring up to the sky to touch the heavens themselves, which might explain why the Mountain was named "The Bridge to the Sun".

Naruto let go of his cane. It would be of no use for the climb. "Well, I'm a ninja. I'm supposed to laugh at nature. Hell, that's how I got here in the first place. Come on, Naruto, just get on with it."

With that, Naruto tensed his legs before jumping as high as he could. He kept on going.

By now, Naruto knew wind the way Gaara knew sand. He held complete mastery over it to the point of reflex. When Naruto wasn't inclined to use his 'earth-step', he preferred to settle back into a tangible whirlwind, the wind acting as a cushion literally soft as a cloud that could travel long distances in no time. Once again, due to the unnatural levels of chakra and mastery needed, it was something only Naruto could do.

Naruto continued to rise at a goodly pace, chewing up the mountain's face at astonishing speed. Still, the top remained out of reach. Naruto focused on drawing oxygen into his lungs as he climbed higher and higher. Through sheer bodily control, Naruto could slow his heart rate to five beats a minute, and live off raw chakra for everything else. In this way, Naruto could last a few hours with little activity without breathing. Managing his whirlwind at the same time, the time was considerably shortened. Naruto prayed he could reach the top.

The height of the mountain was ridiculous, a thing of legend. It was literally measured in miles. Naruto actually passed into the stratosphere before the top finally came in sight. Already seeing spots, Naruto alighted on the summit, and suddenly there was air. Naruto cautiously breathed in, and the cleanest, purest air he'd ever tasted flowed into his lungs.

Naruto slowly regained homeostasis. When he did, he looked around and, even with his decades of experience, even with a lifetime of wonders to look back on, he was struck dumb by his surroundings.

His mindscape was a dying window garden compared to this paradise. The trees were unlike any Naruto had ever seen, though the most closely resembled willows. Ten or twenty spanned the summit. They were covered in leaves the color of sunset, literally glowing with health and vitality. The grass beneath Naruto's feat could have mocked marshmallows for being too rough. A small pond rested in the center of this Eden, the water bluer than even his eyes, and clear as the air he breathed. The sun seemed to rest on a bed of clouds that spanned the horizon. Everything, every tiny facet of the place, was full to bursting of a perfection that no creature of mere flesh and blood could replicate. It was the Kami's Garden.

The Kyuubi rumbled from the depths of Naruto's mind, heard as clearly as if it stood at its container's shoulder. **'This place is a dream of a dream to your kind. A few leaves were blown down to the earth, and an old hermit chewed some of them. He literally became ten years younger overnight. Rumors abounded, and soon every superstitious fool on the planet came to search the land for the 'leaves of youth'… and if you make a pun about that fitness maniac in your village, I will render you impotent.'**

Naruto was still stunned, and so did not respond to the threat. _'That's the secret, isn't it? I have to absorb the Natural Energy of this garden. Of course, I'll need a ridiculous amount of chakra to counteract it. The energy of this place is so pure that I'll have to 'filter' it through mountains of chakra to keep me from turning into one of these trees. The tiniest nuance out of place, and I'll be sucked up by the earth.'_

The Kyuubi growled its agreement. Its container was sharp as Tenten's finest blade; it was no surprise how fast he had reached the right conclusion. **'I'd get started if I were you. Juubi knows how long you'll be here.'**

Naruto nodded, before slowly lowering himself to the earth in the lotus position. He was tempted to just keel over and take a nap in the sinfully-luxurious grass, but he maintained his focus. Taking a deep breath, Naruto went completely still, allowing the energy of nature to flow around and into him. He'd stopped moving around and surrendered to the embrace of the planet.

Naruto felt more alive just by feeling the energy of the garden touch him. Age would be washed away like a bad stain under the tide of that vibrant power. Drawing every ounce of his not-inconsiderable concentration, Naruto focused on drawing in the Natural Energy of the place.

It was worse than the first time he'd tried on Mt. Myoboku. The energy rushed in with an unquenchable force, seeking to transform and break down the muddied chains that held the true elements of his form together in the shape of flesh. Naruto stopped himself from going over the point of no return by a nanometer. He smothered the rush of Natural Energy with his own chakra, beating it down and saturating it until it subsided and melted into his reserves.

This titanic trial occurred within the split-second he first reached for the energy. It continued for half an hour. Roots reached up from the soil to caress and hug Naruto's body as he did what no mere man had ever done before: subjected the might of nature herself to his will. Naruto didn't even notice as his body morphed and shifted, evolving into something beyond simple Homo Sapien under the direct influence of raw nature.

Muscles rippled, shifted, and reformed as they strove to reflect the perfection flowing in. Naruto's skin cleared as it repaired itself and more, until he glowed like a statue of pure bronze. His hair shifted into a gold that put his old shade to shame. His eyes deepened and brightened until they shined like the unearthly pool in the center of the garden. The clothes he'd acquired in Konoha crumbled into dust, obliterated by the run-off of the miracle occurring within the person wearing them.

The human race, like all living things, was like a painting that nature had drawn at the dawn of time and had left largely untouched since, the slowly fading and chipping under Time's heavy touch. What Naruto was going through was akin to a master restoring that painting and adding their own flair.

The Kyuubi huddled in its cage as it felt the metamorphosis its host was going through. **'Inari's tits, what the hell is going on?'**

Naruto, more exhausted than he could ever remember, finally closed off his body from the flow of nature as the last of his chakra tamed the final wave of energy. He collapsed to the ground, unconscious before his head touched the grass.

**

* * *

I figured I'd stop here. I've been caught up in One Piece for so long that I figured I'd use Oda's vacation as a chance to return to my roots. Hope I haven't lost my touch. Ja ne.**


	2. Chapter 2

**I repeat, this is just for boredom-relief. This fic is little more than an attempt at a god-like Gary Sue without crashing and burning. Oh, and a creative outlet for a hormonal teenager. Really, don't put too much interest into this fic.**

**P.S. I'm a tad inconsistent, so if you see a medley of Japanese and English terms, don't spaz out.**

* * *

Naruto slowly arose from the dreamless depths his mind had drowned in. Sensations came slowly and one at a time, as they often do after a long, satisfying period of sleep. The first sensation was one of temperature. The air around him hovered just at the edge of being too cold, serving to be both pleasant and invigorating, increasing the rate at which Naruto returned to full awareness.

The next was one of energy. Naruto. Felt. Great. Better than he had for decades. There was no persistent ache in his knees, no soreness in his muscles, no fatigue that had been his constant companion since his age hit the triple digits. He felt like he could have run a marathon just to let off some steam. He was full to the brim with, as Gai would term it, 'flames of youth'.

'_Youth… youth… oh yeah, I'm young again.'_ Naruto opened his eyes. That first glimpse of the sky served to wake him up better than the clear air. He'd never seen such a pure shade of blue, and the wisps of thin clouds were as ethereal as a mirage. Not even Sai could have captured the perfection of the scene that met his eyes at that moment.

Naruto slowly came to his feet, observations flooding into his brain where they were acknowledged and filed. He was, he noted once more, without a stitch of clothing. The grass was so comfy and the air so clean that he wasn't bothered unduly. The summit was still breathtakingly beautiful. Naruto was pleasantly surprised when he noted that the sight was much clearer and intense than it had been performed. Guess that trip to the optometrist wasn't needed anymore. He also noted that sounds were coming in much more detailed. His already advanced sense of smell seemed to have gotten a bit of a boost as well. He could actually find the exact spot he'd landed on the summit solely by the faint trace of his scent left on the grass.

Naruto breathed deeply of the pure air, curling his toes into the rich earth. He became aware of other things, any last vestiges of drowsiness leaving his system. In regards to his chakra, he was quite literally running hot. Naruto had so much juice running through his system that his body temperature was raised from all the condensed power. All his mental development had apparently quite eagerly adapted to his revitalized body. Naruto felt like he could do S-ranked jutsu for an hour before he would even notice a dip.

So far, Naruto's awareness of his actual body had been limited to basic awareness of more energy and no more little aches and pains. His eyes flicked to the pond by his feet, and was suddenly struck dumb.

We've all heard it millions of times, descriptions and poems and what have you of physical attractiveness. Women that could drive men breathless with a single wink, men that could make women's' panties evaporate with a smirk. We hear about the perfect roundness of those breasts, the flawless structure of that face, the smoothness of that skin, the development of those muscles. It's all a lot more exaggerated than real life. Every human being follows a basic structure, a structure that can appeal to different people in different ways. All these tales of heart-stopping beauty are really people with a few nuances more of one aspect or other. All men can get muscular, and it really comes down to what a woman prefers. All women can get thin, but it depends on how that thinness compliments what a man likes. And even then, there are those who like the other end of the extremes. There are some basics that purely stimulate the lizard brain, but in the end, it comes down to male, female, and procreation, and attractiveness is just something meant to sweeten the deal. All those artistic accounts just paint pictures in people's minds that appeal to them personally.

Naruto had gone beyond that. The raw force of nature coursing through him had upgraded that basic code written into his chromosomes. Quite simply, he had _more_ to him than any other human male. His height was impressive, closer to seven feet than six. His hair fell to his mid-back, growing in spikes a bit longer and thicker than usual (think Axel from KH2). The color was like sunlight, a stunning yellow that probably couldn't be naturally found. His eyes were a blue as the perfect sky above the summit, and glowed slightly, like a live generator, while the slit pupils were like bottomless crevasses deeper and more infinite than the vastness of space itself. His whiskers were dark and feral, and as natural as if he'd been made to have them. His skin was gleaming like bronze, without a single flaw. As for his muscles, think of the sexiest male model you can think of. Make everything fuller, without bulging; make all the lines distinct, without being sharp; make everything the most geometrically exact shape, without clashing with each other. Then, add other things. Small, almost unnoticeable additions that contribute to the whole, like the position of veins, or perhaps the way the fingers are spaced, maybe even the basic skeletal structure. Adjust them all in just such a way that, taken as a whole, the only possible thought going through your head is 'perfect, not human'. There was no natural way to have all of that, in exactly the right way, plus tiny extra things. And yet, there it was.

Naruto could quite probably have stared at himself for hours. He was a god. Simple as that. No questions asked. That body belonged to a creature that transcended the limits of human power, a creature that the human race was only a hazy reflection of. Naruto was the model that figures like Adonis strove to be. If perfection had ever been physically personified, Naruto was it.

A sardonic growl snapped Naruto from his self-ogling. **'You know, staring at yourself is the first sign of a few mental conditions. Not that I'm against you going crazy; it'll spice things up if nothing else.'**

Naruto shook his head. The thinner air must be getting to him. He most certainly did _not_ want to wind up some kind of narcissist like Gaara or Sasuke. He was young again, that was the cool part. The gratuitous amount of sex appeal was simply an unforeseen bonus. No need to start with any hubris.

Naruto stretched his new limbs out, going through the exercises he'd held routine ever since becoming the Hokage. Simple stretches steadily grew more complex, and Naruto felt his blood beginning to pump. He began running, around and around the summit, feeling the familiar heat of exertion, but there wasn't any discomfort. If anything, the exercise seemed to be sending his ridiculous reserves into overdrive. Naruto steadily grew faster and faster, testing his new body. It wasn't long until he was nigh invisible, going so fast that the eye could barely catch an after-image. Without warning, Naruto fell to the ground, going straight in push-ups. He completed five hundred within two minutes, immediately flipping around and going into sit-ups. He completed the same number in the same time-frame. Squats came next, then kicks, then punches. Naruto slipped smoothly into his katas, engaging in a deadly dance with invisible opponents. He ended with a fluid exactness, bringing his body into a resting position. A mild shockwave blew out from him as the slipstream finally caught up.

Naruto grinned. "This will do."

* * *

Naruto leaned back against the cliffside, his eyes remaining still but taking in everything. He was currently looking down on Kumogakure. He was wearing shorts made of stabilized mud, and found that he didn't need anything else. He found himself moving better barefoot, no doubt due to his tighter bond to nature, and the cold didn't seem to affect him.

Naruto had taken a rather thrilling route down from the summit, i.e. jumping right off the edge. A combination of obscene mastery over wind and much stronger bones allowed Naruto to stand right back up after finally reaching the ground. He'd actually gotten a few re-entry burns, though they healed almost before he registered them. It had been simple to geo-skate to Kumo.

He had decided to save his return to Konoha for last in his quest in 'acquiring' his angels. His flair for the dramatic decreed it so. Therefore, Yugito was first on the list, for the sheer fact of being the closest. Bee and Team Samui had told him tons of stories about Yugito, mourning her loss long after Akatsuki's fall. In time, Naruto had come to share their love for the lost Jinchuuriki. She sounded just like him: disrespected, bull-headedly determined, willing to risk life and limb for her friends and her village.

Naruto, however, was faced with a quandary: how on earth to actually get Yugito. Genial though he was, Naruto doubted that A would just let one of his best Jonin run off with some random stranger that randomly showed up proclaiming genuine love for said Jonin. The fact that that stranger was easily S-ranked would not make things go any easier.

The thing was, A was a fighter. So were Yugito and Bee. All three would rather settle things on the battlefield than with pretty words. They all also had strong senses of honor. If they made a deal, they would see it through the gates of Hell.

Given the obscene amounts of energy Naruto was itching to work off, some good ol' fashioned duels-to-the-death seemed like a viable option. However, this presented another problem. If word got around about a blond-haired, blue-eyed, Rasengan-wielding, Kage-beating stranger got around, he'd have the entire continent, Orochimaru and Akatsuki included, after his hide. The rumors alone would be earth-shattering.

Naruto was by no means limited to his 'traditional' style. In fact, in retrospect, he realized that it was vaguely pathetic. Seriously, the whole 'spam the world with Kage Bunshin and hope to hit the target' approach was like some kid in the playground. Even Rasengan and Sage Mode were merely extensions of this brutish mindset. It was damn effective, of that there was no doubt, but it was like using cannon to hunt for rabbits: loud, messy, and as imprecise as Tenten was accurate.

Naruto had taken to experimenting with different styles of fighting while he was in office, and had refined them in retirement since there was nothing better to do. In truth, during the many 'consultant' jobs he'd taken when bored, Naruto had only resorted to his 'roots' when he felt nostalgic.

Naruto took a brief moment to think about his actions. Here he was, gearing up to face Kage and Jinchuriki, in order to capture fair maiden's heart. That was bordering on Pain's 'I am god, my will rules' way of thinking.

Naruto shrugged to himself. "I'm hyper, horny, and she'll thank me for it later. This is _my_ little vacation through time, by thunder." Whatever his physical age, Naruto's mind was still kept a passing acquaintance with Dr. C. Nile D. Mentia.

Now that he thought about it, the whole 'god' angle had some potential… Naruto's grin nearly bisected his head. He now had a plan that would end with reckless violence, hot sex, and one of the greatest inside jokes of all time. Oh yeah baby, it was good to be young!

* * *

Kumogakure had a rather unique sense of architecture. Structures were literally built into the mountains that hid them, and this often resulted in odd shapes, with the Raikage Tower looking like nothing so much as a giant glass worm eating its way up what remained of the original rock.

Travel in the village constituted either long treks through the tunnels riddling the mountain system, or short-range Shunshin for the shinobi. Given that only a rare few actually preferred spending hours each day going from their homes to their workplaces, the majority of the populace enrolled into the Academy, where the Shunshin was one of the first jutsu on the curriculum. Even if you flunked out, you still had an effective means of travel. Constant use of the deceptively draining technique had the beneficial side-effect of Kumo having the highest average chakra reserves of any village.

In Naruto's time, when technology had long since gone from supplementing jutsu to rendering them obsolete, Kumo made due with a highly effective monorail system. However, even people from that time would have been flabbergasted by Naruto's entrance. The present was outright shocked.

It began with an event that even the youngest toddler in Kumo knew was an ill omen. What with the temperate climate and the altitude, Kumo, as its name implied, laid under a near constant curtain of cloud cover. White puffs, grey masses, even bruise-purple behemoths, all were considered as natural to the populace as trees were to the people of Konoha. When the clouds disappeared, bad things happened. The Nibi and Hachibi had rampaged on cloudless days. Every Raikage to date had died on a cloudless day. Even the Shinobi Wars had begun on those rare occurrences when the sky over Kumo was clear.

There wasn't a single cloud in the sky. There hadn't been for the entire day.

Of course, superstitious expectation can never actually prepare all but the most cripplingly paranoid for the real thing. Hence the record amount of dislocated jaws as people looked out their windows or balconies and saw a man walking on air.

Well, that wasn't entirely accurate. The man, whom most had trouble focusing on for some reason, was walking on ice or diamond, one of the two. It was so clear and bright that it was hard to tell at a distance. What truly made the scene monumentally bizarre was that the ice/diamond/whatever was forming under the man's feet as he walked forward, and falling to the earth as he stepped away. The effect was of a crystal shower trailing a figure as he descended from the sky on an invisible road. Lesser events have inspired religions.

Civilians were struck dumb by the miraculous display, but the shinobi were the ones who were driven mad with panic. The reason they couldn't look straight at the being was because he/she/it was exuding enough chakra to haze the air. Continuously. While performing what was quite obviously some of the most complex Wind/Water/Earth manipulation in existence at the same time. Quite a few fainted from fear.

It might have been a touch melodramatic, but the awe was earned. What Naruto was doing was relatively simple in principle, but nigh impossible in practice. Ergo, par for the course for the blond. He gathered water out of the air by focusing chakra to his feet, and then infused it with wind and light nature chakra. Wind to transform the water into ice, and Light in order to allow it to float. Just as Nara's used Darkness to manipulate gravity, Light could be used to negate gravity. In point of fact, the highest level Light jutsu in existence involved creating functional wings composed of razor-sharp feathers.

Of course, the drain was enough for even Naruto to consciously notice it, but given the downright only-in-fanfiction level of energy he had, he could easily keep it up for three or four hours. It wasn't much of a sacrifice to walk straight to the Raikage Tower.

Naruto stepped right onto the tree-filled roof of the Tower. He was met by half a dozen of Kumo's ANBU and none other than A himself.

A, much like Bee, was tall, dark-skinned and light-haired with a small mustache. The kage had evidently forgone his robes, leaving his hulkish physique to the open air. The large man had a shuriken tattooed on both shoulders. He also wore a multitude of gold bangles on his wrists, which Naruto knew had hidden spikes that could extend with an application of chakra and a solid gold buckle carved into a charging boar. Had he existed in the future, Naruto would have pegged him as a professional wrestler, one of the many species of pseudo-warriors bred for entertainment rather than war in the future.

A studied Naruto intensely as the latter ceased his 'chakra haze' and stood relaxed in the midst of Kumo's finest ninja. He had no idea who or even what this person was, but it was best to collect as much information as possible. What he saw disturbed him. Being somewhat of an expert on physical fitness, rivaling Konoha's own Maito Gai, A knew the nuances of muscle, how different builds reflected different strengths. He, for example, had a large build best suited for powerful blows of the hands, but the consequence was a relative lack of speed and flexibility. Hyuuga, conversely, were honed towards agility and fluidity of motion, but even the most accomplished of Jyuuken users barely had Chunin-level strength pound for pound. There were a myriad other types of builds, and each were distinctive to the trained eye.

A couldn't place this stranger. He seemed to have signs of all of them, the muscles on clear display. Theoretically, there was a possibility for overlap between endurance, speed, strength, balance, and flexibility, yet it was so miniscule that it would take more exact conditioning, on a very intensive level, with just the right genetics, than A honestly figured was realistically possible. And yet, the stranger seemed to occupy that tiny niche.

He was also extraordinarily good-looking, if the nervous fidgeting of the female ANBU were any indication. Hell, A was straight as a board and he might have considered giving the stranger a shot, but he was firmly in battle-mode.

What was even more disturbing was the chakra the man was giving off, or at least A assumed it was chakra. It had a different feel than any A had ever felt, including the yokai Yugito and Bee exuded while in beast form. It was chaotic and seemed somewhat strained, as if it were having a hard time containing itself. Chakras all have their own flavors, with fire being warm, healing being soothing, and so on. A felt as if someone had crammed a thousand different sensations into his brain when the man had come close enough for his energy to be sensed, and it hadn't ceased since.

All of this, complained with the simple intuition that this being was stronger than A could ever hope to be, and the Raikage was more unnerved than if ten of Orochimaru had shown up on his doorstep.

Naruto saw the growing tension in A, and sighed. Guess he had come across more threatening than he wanted. He hadn't quite processed the fact that no one _knew_ him in this time and that the immediate response to a super-powered unknown was fear and/or violence. Then again, this provided an excellent opportunity to establish his new identity!

"Be at peace, my friend. I mean no harm to your village at this time."

Something Naruto had been unaware of was that, with his little remodel, another modification had been a constant flow of chakra to his vocal chords. Quite literally, Naruto's words were filled with power. Whether that power is cruel, or charismatic, or seductive, the power was there.

Since A was the target, he unconsciously relaxed under the influence of Naruto's voice, which ironically enough set him on edge even more. The reactions among the ANBU were similar in body, vastly different in principle. The women all shuddered upon hearing the voice, which was almost an aphrodisiac by itself. The men only registered 'power' and started shaking in fear.

A collected all his shattered calm and regained his focus. He projected a sense of authority and no fear at Naruto, fully aware that it was transparent but feeling the need to do so. "State your purpose here, stranger. You are currently invading the boundaries of Kumogakure. Leave now, or we will be forced to remove you."

Naruto chuckled, the sound sending shivers of various varieties up the audience's spines. "As you yourself say, A, power and action are the only things truly respected in this world. What incentive do I have to reveal my intentions other than a desire to be where I am?"

A was now officially afraid. His philosophy wasn't a great secret to his village, but like all Hidden Villages, most information was kept confined to the limits of the village. The innocuous tidbit implied much, and raised a great many pressing concerns. Of course, fear was no excuse to a shinobi, so A got into his stance.

"How about this: you tell me who you are and why the hell you're here and I won't send you flying to Iron Country?" A faint crackling sound filled the air, as the spike in A's emotions led to a spike in his highly Lightning-natured chakra reserves, and thus a massive increase in static electricity.

Naruto grinned in a bestial manner, and one of the younger kunoichi actually whimpered. The sharp canines, combined with the thick whisker marks and the fox-like eyes: it was every inch that of an excited monster.

"Now you are speaking my language." Naruto held up three fingers. "Your three greatest warriors. That is why I am here. I challenge the three most powerful of this village to battle. You may all attack me at once; I do so love a challenge. Should I lose to any of you, I shall pledge on my word, spirit, and blood to serve you personally and the village of Kumogakure for as long as I shall live, however long that might be. However, should you all be defeated, I will choose one of the three and that person will be bound to serve me. Straightforward, no?"

A growled in indignation. It just _had_ to be a cloudless day, didn't it? "You haven't answered my question. Who the damn hell are you to show up and demand such an outrageous thing from the Yondaime Raikage?" A personally hated to pull rank, but it was often necessary to impress upon the arrogant.

Naruto smirked. And then he flared his chakra.

The little episode in the Hokage's office was a firecracker compared to this fireworks display. The sky went dark from the blinding amount of light that exploded out of Naruto's body. Everyone in the village glued to their windows watching clutched their eyes in pain. Even the ANBU had to avert their gaze. A alone beheld what Naruto intended to show him.

Naruto himself was nothing but a silhouette concealed within a palpable, prismatic globe of chakra that glimmered with every color imaginable. Ten 'tails' extended from the sphere, like the arms of some terrible leviathan. Each one was a different color, and at each end there floated a kanji constructed from pure power. The tails spiraled out from the sphere into the air behind it, kanji once again forming where they crossed with each other and the colors bled together.

A was left staring in shock. It was like a mandala, or some ancient seal. Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning. Light, Darkness. Chakra, Natural Energy, Yokai. Ice, Storm, Wood, Sand, Boil, Lava. The kanji for each floated in the air at either the end or at the intersection of the tails that extended from the sphere like a whirlpool, each one its own distinctive color. The sight was as terrifying as it was beautiful.

And with a flash, it disappeared. A was left gaping at the gently smiling _being_ in front of him as his ANBU started showing signs of true worry.

Naruto now had an emphatic understanding of Orochimaru, Pain, and every other megalomaniac he had ever crossed paths with. It felt _good_ to have people staring at you like you vastly overpowered them the way you truly did. He'd have to keep a close eye on his ego, or he'd turn into exactly the kind of douche he had spent his life trying to eradicate.

Now, just to put the finishing touches on his 'new' self. Naruto was no more, his time had passed. In his place stood…

"I am Uzu. How about that fight?"

A gulped. This _creature_ was powerful. All caps, bold, triple underlined, italicized, infinite exclamation points _**POWERFUL!**_ The kind of power that could crush Konoha and all the other villages and leave Kumo reigning supreme. Provided that Kumo's greatest could subdue that power.

A turned to the ANBU to his immediate left. "Get me Bee and Yugito. Now!"

Uzu chuckled, gaining A's attention. "That won't be necessary. I know exactly where they are. Let's go join them, shall we?" In an instant, Uzu had his hand on A's shoulder. Before any of the Kumo ninja there could react, A and Uzu vanished.

* * *

The Valley of Clouds and Lightning. It was a fair distance from Kumo, and served as the personal training grounds for the Raikage's brother and the Hachibi Jinchuuriki, Killer Bee. Oh, and anyone whom he both liked enough to spar with, and was capable of weathering his raps for any given period of time. So far, the list was confined to Team Samui, A, and Nii Yugito.

Yugito and Bee were currently taking a 'break', which for Jinchuuriki meant a five-minute breather after a solid hour or two of heavy sparring. Yugito was desperately trying to maintain her 'wa' as Bee kept muttering truly horrible rhymes to himself. Her preferred method in such instances was composing an original piece for her shamisen, her one and only 'graduation' gift after mastering the Nibi's chakra.

Yugito was just puzzling out a particular set of triplets when there was a spike of chakra and suddenly the Yondaime Raikage was in her midst.

"Raikage-sama!" Yugito shouted, shocked by the sudden appearance of her leader. She was just about to stand at attention when her senses kicked into gear and she realized the other person in the clearing.

"Yo, bro! Who's the guy you brought with you, to come meet with the Eight and Two?" No, he wasn't joking. That was honestly his best effort. Unfortunately, the necessary 'quirk' that Bee had developed, like all Jonin did to cope with their stress, had been one that required a nonexistent sense of poetry.

Atypically, neither A nor Yugito commended on the atrocious rap. A, because he was stunned at the implications of his sudden appearance. It wasn't impossible to Shunshin with passengers, but it was far more taxing, for it required to not only calibrate for your own chakra stores, but also for those of the extra persons. In short, Uzu had just sacrificed a Kage's worth of chakra to save ten minute's running, and he didn't even seem tired. A was faced with an odd blend of fear and anticipation of the coming fight.

Yugito… well. How to put this delicately… Picture Tora after he got locked up in a large vault piled to the ceiling with the finest-grade catnip. There is a short moment of stunned awe at the good fortune, and then frenzies the likes of which human eyes have never seen are unleashed.

The man with A was easily the most handsome being that Yugito had ever, or was ever likely to see. She literally started to drool as her eyes roamed over the flawless, sinfully appealing muscles laid bare for the world to see. Yugito had never had much time for men, putting her duty first always, but she'd go out with this guy in a heartbeat. His face was the truly stunning part. His eyes, his soft smirk, the way his hair caught the light, every single aspect seemed to just project an air of such confidence and masculinity that Yugito, the proudest, most independent kunoichi you'd ever meet, was rendered weak at the knees.

Oh, and the super-charged pheromones radiating off his body helped things along, of course.

Nibi, within the confines of the seal, was sweating bullets. **'Blessed angels, who is that? He has more chakra than all of the others combined, me and the Hachibi included! Did the Rokudou Sennin get reincarnated or something? What if he's here to steal the kitten and tone-deaf one and suck us out and remake the Jubi? This does not bode well!'** Much like Omoi, the Nibi had a propensity to over think things. This was to be expected, since just as the Kyuubi thrived off hatred and the Hachibi off the mental anguish of others, the Nibi fed off mayhem, in the raw chaos of panic and pain let loose with no boundaries. However, it had the irksome habit of being anxious of the very scenarios it desired.

A coughed, drawing Yugito's attention away from Uzu. He quickly outlined the basic situation and the deal that he had made with Uzu, who watched impassively from a small distance away: far enough to make the conversation feel private, yet close enough for his ears to pick up every word.

"So, if we can't beat him in a duel, one of us has to follow this fool. Man, my bro, that's so uncool!" Bee was hopping from foot to foot, shaking out his arms as he chanted this. If the twitching of his arms towards the numerous swords sheathed to his back was any indication, he was much more eager for a fight than he let on.

A frowned at his younger brother. "What am I supposed to do, Bee? He showed up out of nowhere promising his loyalty on condition of a fight. He doesn't look anything like anyone in the Bingo Book, and no village could hide a ninja of that caliber. I'm not going to look a gift-horse in the mouth on this one. It's three-on-one, and it isn't exactly the Genin test, okay? Let's just fight the guy and hope for the best. That's how things always worked out for me, and I'll stick with what works!"

Yugito was now all business. Like many shinobi, she had developed the ability to compartmentalize her emotions to keep them out of the way. Her newfound lust was thrust into a little corner in the back of her head, and she was now every inch the serious kunoichi. "How do you want to do this, A-sama? Should we test the waters, or do you want Bee and I to go all out from the start? If he's as dangerous as you think, that might be needed."

Uzu spoke up at that point, setting all three on edge at his ability to hear them. "I would advise that, actually. Without your tails out, you'll never keep up with me. That goes for you and your armor as well, A-san."

Such casual mention of a ninja's ace in the hole is a surefire way to up the general paranoia and tension in the atmosphere. Even Bee stopped with his hyper motions and settled into his preferred stance. Yugito and A did the same, all of them facing the enemy that had appeared out of nowhere.

Uzu grinned. Damn, but this was fun! "Ready… go."

With that, two Kage-level shinobi and an Elite Jonin kunoichi charged at the strongest being in existence. Hard to tell who to feel sorry for.

Killer Bee rushed forward first, all eight tails of his 1st version form waving around him. With all seven swords out, and the 'eighth' formed by the cloak like a horn primed, Bee immediately closed distance with Uzu and began a wild dance of slashes and stabs, while A began the handseals to his Raiton no Yoroi and Yugito began gathering enough chakra to fully transform into the Nibi.

Uzu grinned wildly as he dodged all of Bee's strikes. The style was utterly unpredictable, resembling a freestyle routine more than any structured kata, and reflex ruled. Given his first opponents, he had decided to go with favorite style of combat. He preferred it to the Spiraling Bunshin because, after all, what was the point of making a destructive army when you could get the same results with a little speed, chakra manipulation, and some creative elemental combos?

Uzu vanished from Bee's sight. The rapper felt his danger sense go haywire, and dodged to the side. A mass of forked lightning went through the space he once occupied. Right before he dodged a similar blast, Bee noted that the lightning seemed to be half white and half black, and seemed to hang in the air instead of vanishing as lightning should have.

Uzu seemed to be no more than a murky reflection in the air. He literally never stopped moving, appearing right in Bee's blind spot every time he dodged another blast of the lingering lightning. Speaking of which, Bee found himself quickly being hounded into a corner. He could only dodge in a certain direction, since he wasn't at all curious to see if the lightning still shocked if he touched it when it went still, though the first bursts seemed to be slowly fading. What's more, the patterns were becoming more elaborate, and increasingly harder to dodge. It had only been seconds, and yet Bee was now almost completely surrounded by the black-and-white webs of lightning.

Uzu was just about to launch a blast from below, when a bolt of true lightning struck down from the cloudless sky, covering A in a crackling yellow-white corona. The Raikage, now moving at speeds nearing those of his chosen element, barreled right towards Uzu, counting on the protective properties of his armor to save him from the odd lightning Uzu was being so liberal with.

The blond demigod abandoned trying to hit Bee with his 'thorn-lightning', settling instead for a straight kick to the sternum. It moved fast enough to break through Bee's guard, and was strong enough to send him flying halfway across the valley. At the same time, he held his arm out at A in a 'halt' motion.

A indeed wound up stopping, but that was probably because of the diamond-hard barrier of light that appeared in front of Uzu's hand like a shield. Even as he was flung back from ricochet, A noticed that the wall instantly vanished, and concluded that it was a one-shot protection. Assuming a recharge period, that meant there was a small opening for attack.

Uzu apparently wasn't letting up on A. He vanished once again, appearing right behind the stumbling A. Flinging his arms to his side, two orange-white blades of plasma formed, both seeming to follow the path of Uzu's arms. The time-traveler gave a mighty x-slash, the 'laser-blades' parting the condensed lightning like a knife through butter. Rather than blood and gore, however, A exploded in an intense arc of electricity, revealing it to be a Raiton: Kage Bunshin. Uzu wasn't electrocuted, since he was already at the other end of the battlefield: not thirty seconds had yet passed.

A mighty roar shook the air as a ten-foot cat made of searing blue flames took form where Yugito had stood. One eye was yellow, while the other green, and Uzu found himself on the receiving end of a demonically-charged death glare. Uzu grinned… and then vanished. Bee soared through the spot he used to be, his Lariat attack now useless.

The cat swung its head, searching for prey. Out of nowhere, a ring of the odd plasma blades Uzu had used against A appeared around her. Had anyone there had a Sharingan, they would have seen Uzu running around the cat, forming the blades and leaving them in the air before once again taking off for a safe distance. Before the cat could so much as roar in surprise, the blades flew towards it like a hail of kunai.

After seeing the way the plasma had sheared through A's prized armor, Yugito was in no hurry to experience them first-hand. With no other option, she jumped into the air. Alas, escape was not to be. The blades altered their path to follow her like a bloodhound on a fox. Yugito hastily prepared a Menacing Ball, but she was too slow. The blades impacted, each with a 'small' explosion, knocking her out of the air and dispelling the Nibi's chakra cloak.

A and Bee gathered together, both watching the nonchalant Uzu with extreme caution. In less than a minute, he had held off the two of them, indeed almost delivered killing blows, and given Yugito a heavy beating. This fight was going to be much harder than they had anticipated.

Uzu watched the brothers watching him. _This_ is why he preferred the Nothing Touch style. A small bit of Wind chakra to increase speed, some Dark/Lightning combos to herd the crowd, Storm blades, maybe a little Light/Earth for defense. In some ways, as small a handful of tricks as the Spiraling Bunshin, but it was ruthlessly more efficient, and was more effective at psychological warfare. It is one thing to face a never-ending stream of foes, but it is quite another to not even touch a single opponent as they tear you apart.

(For those who have never played KH2 to the end, look up Xemnas on Youtube).

Naruto pulled an errant spike of hair away from his face. "Is that all you've got?" he asked, using that tone that makes you want to punch in the nose of the person talking to you.

His answer came as a kunai slash from behind, the blade trailing blue fire from the heat of its passage. Uzu seemed to blink to the side, catching the hand holding the kunai, following it to the enraged face of Yugito.

"I see you can take a hit," Naruto said conversationally, as if one of the women he planned to make extraordinarily happy hadn't just attempted to kill him.

"Cats have nine lives, asshole," she hissed, before using his grip as a support to attempt an ude-garami lock at high-Jonin speed.

She actually made it halfway through the move before Uzu vanished from her grip, seeming to phase right through her body, moving fast enough to leave an afterimage. This created the illusion of there being two of Uzu, both tangible, before the first quickly vanished.

A appeared behind above Uzu, screaming "Guillotine Drop!" before bringing his leg down with enough force to crack titanium. His armor flared as the hit connected with the earth, attempting to zap the target that had seemed to glide right around the attack.

Seizing the opportunity, Uzu fired an extended arc of thorn lightning at A. As electricity hit electricity, A seemed to merely take the attack as blunt force rather than electrocution/stabbing as was intended. Still, it was a decent hit, and the Raikage was sent skidding across the earth.

Bee, now at the 2nd version of his full cloak, let loose with Ink Saliva from his position behind Uzu, whom once again dodged. However, it had merely been a distraction for Yugito to lash out with a blue-white fireball. Uzu blocked this with a light wall, and then perforce had to dodge the wild Seven Swords Dance that Bee was delivering while charged with Hachibi's chakra.

A charged from the side with a Lariat, long years of teamwork having allowed the siblings to form strategies almost telepathically. Bee had forced Uzu into the perfect position for an attack. Yugito was an asset, but she simply could not forge joint tactics on the fly like the brothers could. It was a perfect trap, Bee now too fast for Uzu to merely vanish and A coming in for the kill.

It wasn't going to be that simple.

A second Uzu materialized, swinging a spiraling uppercut with the deadly Storm blades right at A, forcing the Kage to dodge to the side. The copy vanished, revealing that it was simply an afterimage. Apparently, Uzu could move even faster than they thought. The instant his 'copy' vanished, Uzu fired a Storm blade from point-blank range, sending Bee flying into Yugito, who had been discreetly charging towards them.

Uzu cracked his knuckles, surveying the recovering ninja arrayed against him. "Round Three, anyone? I do hope you'll keep this entertaining."

All three charged.

* * *

The fight was long, brutal, the stuff of legend. The most destructive jutsu in Kumo's repertoire made appearances through her three finest, often times as part of an incredible collaboration formed in the heat of the moment. Yugito learned from past experience and settled for a non-corporeal two-tail cloak at all times, easily providing her with Kage strength, speed, as well as transforming every attack into the equivalent of a close-range B-rank fire jutsu. Bee reacted on the fly and created whole new forms in his seven-sword stance, and the battle had provided him with a more intimate knowledge of how to manifest Hachibi than years of training, learning to form individual body parts at a time rather than transforming entirely. A himself literally reformed the landscape, unlocking everything up to the Fourth Gate and pulling out the Kinjutsu that served as big brother to his Raiton Yoroi, and the less that is said of it, the sounder you may sleep at night.

Uzu had some dirt and dust caked on to his skin. Nothing more.

That wasn't to say he hadn't taken a few hits. However, mastery of an element made it much less damaging, and with Uzu's omnipotence of ninjutsu, he'd really only take half the damage he should have from any and all nature-chakra attacks. His healing factor had cleaned up what was left.

Bee was lying in a heap, his swords sprayed out around him like fallen trees, quite possibly exhausted for the first time in his life. A himself had managed to preserve dignity and managed to stay on one knee. Then again, considering all the torn muscles he now had, it might be more accurate to say he was stuck on one knee. Yugito was lying on all fours, taking huge gasps of air, her hair tangled and a tad singed from her own attacks.

Uzu himself was taking deep breaths, but he showed no other sign of the massive ordeal that had incapacitated the three shinobi he faced. _'I'd say that was about… half of my chakra stores. I haven't been this tested in years! It's so damn thrilling!'_

Uzu spoke up towards A. "A-san, I have beaten you and your two finest shinobi. Will you honor the pact we made?" He seemed honestly curious, not mocking. For that alone, A's pride felt less mauled. Hey, you can't win 'em all. You might as well lose to the absolute best.

"It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to sign away one of my ninja, especially to a total stranger, but I gave my word, and that's all a shinobi really has in the end." A hung his head, the very picture of resignation. "Choose which of us will follow you."

Uzu stared at them a moment. Then, he slowly and deliberately walked towards his target, each step distinct and loud as thunder in the still silence that follows a major conflict. Soon, he was close enough to bend down and whisper in their ear. "Sleep, Cat-warrior. You don't have to fight anymore."

The powerful, soothing tenor of Uzu's voice poured through Yugito's ears, and she finally stopped struggling to hold onto consciousness. Oh so gently, the time-traveler took her into his arms bridal-style, turning to face the devastated brothers. Yugito was as good as a sister to them both.

"I swear to you both, she will never come to undue harm." With that, Uzu took a step and disappeared.

* * *

Yugito slowly awoke to luxurious comfort. A very good way for anyone to wake up, all told.

Naturally, being a hired assassin going on missions through the harshest conditions on the continent, Yugito had a lot of tension. Like most Kunoichi, she made due with the occasional trip to the onsen, but a hot-water soak only goes so far. Shinobi in general just went through life with a great deal of knots and dealt with it.

Strong, sure, velvety smooth hands as warm and comforting as a candle's flame were slowly and methodically undoing all of Yugito's knots.

Yugito just dosed for a while, half-awake, lost not only in the pleasure of truly relaxing for the first time in years, but in the primal contact of skin on skin. Touch is one of the five senses, and the most sensitive of the lot. From the cradle, we equate the hands of our parents with comfort and safety. From a simple handshake to the embrace of a lover, a touch assures you in the most bone-deep, unconscious levels of your mind that everything's okay.

Yugito hadn't been touched in a really long time. She held everyone at arm's length, even her closest friends. The harsh conditioning she had endured from the time she could walk had left her with an unconscious distrust of everyone. She had heartlessly and brutally molded into a weapon by the Sandaime Raikage, willingly sacrificed by her bitter mother. Her father had been the one sacrificed to seal the Nibi within her, and her mother had forsworn her without a second thought.

This single event, the betrayal of her mother, and the long string of dehumanizing training that followed, had given Yugito a pathological avoidance of intimacy. If she never got close to anyone, than surely she couldn't be hurt again. Team Samui, Bee, A; all of them were her closest companions, but her treatment of them was more akin to acquaintances and business associates

And yet here she was, lying down on a soft, comforting surface, with her back, arms, and neck being stroked and caressed by confident and gentle fingers.

Yugito literally purred in delight.

All of a sudden, the fingers stopped. Before Yugito could react, though, the contact reappeared at her left foot. As they steadily creeped north, even with the relaxing heat, Yugito began to tense up, becoming more awake. She might be a tad high, but there was no way she was letting this guy touch her most sacred place. And more to the point, who _was_ this person massaging her?

Yugito's mind slipped slowly out of its indolent daze and into the keenness of a trapped shinobi. She tried to maintain the illusion that she was the same as before, controlling her heart rate and breathing, and making sure not to make any overt movements. Without opening her eyes, Yugito tried to gather information on her surroundings.

It was dimly lit, likely by a fire if the sound of crackling was anything to go by. The blanket she was lying on seemed to be made of some kind of fur. There was only one other heartbeat in hearing distance, her masseur, whom she knew was male due to the roughness of his palm and the resonance of the breaths, reflecting a broad chest.

She also belatedly noticed she was utterly without clothing, something that should have been obvious, but had somehow slipped through the cracks due to the raw sensation of the rub.

The hands were just about finished with her upper left thigh. Yugito tensed to move before she had her virgin maidenhood probed, before the hands unexpectedly lifted away, to reappear at her right foot.

"You should relax, Yugito. It's not like I'm going to rape you."

Yugito's eyes flew open. She knew that voice. She'd probably carry it to her deathbed. The voice of the man that had utterly defeated her.

Yugito craned her neck to look at Uzu. She tried to work up a glare, but both his god-like build and indulgent touch made it hard to muster anything of the kind. His eyes met hers as he looked up from his work, and Yugito had to suppress shivers. Lust she would have expected, mocking superiority at his power over her she could have dealt with. But no, there was only a pure, sincere affection. He was doing this solely for her own comfort.

His right hand reached a bit farther up than it could have, giving her posterior a soft squeeze.

Well, mostly for her comfort.

Yugito didn't really know how to act. How was one supposed to behave when they awoke to the man who had won them in a fight like some ancient prize of combat? She settled for her customary sardonic banter. "I'd protest that our position in somewhat compromising, but apparently I'm your new slave, so it's a moot point I guess."

She was surprised by the flash of anger that crossed his eyes, altering his features from reassuring to frightening in an instant. Yugito prepared herself for pain, thinking she had unknowingly angered him to violence, but he made no motions to attack, and his face relaxed again after a minute.

"Yugito, I don't ever want you to think of yourself as a slave. I might have 'won' you, but I want this to be a partnership. You are one of the companions I am gathering, and I swear that you will get just as much out of this as I."

Yugito was surprised to say the least. "Why on earth would a guy capable of defeating three of the strongest ninja on the continent need allies?" She almost didn't notice as his hands moved to her butt. Almost.

Uzu grinned, and Yugito was suddenly striving to kill the heat that grew in a region in close proximity to his hands. His whole face, already vibrant, seemed to light up with his smile. It was a sight that could never accurately be put into dye and pigment, and yet was too beautiful to do anything less than try and capture it for all time.

"It gets lonely, being in a league of your own," he said, speaking from true experience. As he had steadily gotten stronger and stronger, people had gotten more and more distant. The villagers were in stark awe, his ninja had only respect, and even his closest friends had become more formal and distant. Hinata and the kids had become his link to reality. He grinned wistfully. "What's the point of being at the top of the world if you don't have someone to share the view with?"

Yugito by now had fully relaxed into Uzu's presence. He was just so damn comforting, like a glass of warm milk at the end of a long day. Yugito felt like she could just lie there and listen to him talk for hours. She'd never let her guard down so fully, and it was liberating as all get out.

So when Uzu took his hands away from her now tension-free bottom, she was more upset at the absence than she expected.

Uzu stood up and walked away, leaving Yugito to belatedly look around. They were in a cave, rather large and comfy actually. A strong fire was steadily burning at the center of the chamber, above which was a great pot that was giving off a very pleasant aroma, presumably the pair's dinner. Judging by the way the light curved, Yugito guessed that the entrance to the cavern was at an angle, preventing anyone from seeing the fire from the outside.

Yugito turned her gaze directly in front of her, and was surprised to see a pile of clothes neatly folded, along with a sealing scroll labeled with her name. Uzu was tending the stew, subtly giving her privacy to change. Unexpected, but undeniably sweet.

Yugito slowly got decked into her new clothes. First off were bandage wrappings for her breasts, the kind preferred by most active kunoichi, as well as indigo panties. She briefly wondered how Uzu knew her favorite color, but decided not to make a fuss. Next came socks, then dark shinobi pants like she was used to, followed by close-toed sandals like the kind she usually wore. A mesh undershirt followed, along with a grey sleeveless t-shirt used by some ANBU. There were also a number of hair bands, which she eagerly used to tie her waist-length hair into its customary tail.

It was the last item that caused her to pause. It was obviously custom, though how Uzu had managed to acquire it in the relatively brief time she had been unconscious, she didn't know. It was a black trench-coat, made of a blend of onigumo spider silk and high-grade wool that was both extremely popular and extremely expensive. The black was very dark and seemed to absorb the light. At the bottom of the coat at the ends of the sleeves, however, there were bright blue flames the same exact shade as those produced by the Nibi. On the back of the coat, there was a whirlpool symbol of the same color, a perfect circle with nine lines slowly curving into the center.

Looking up at Uzu, she was surprised to see that he had changed as well. He wore the exact same things she did, except for one thing: the flames on his coat were golden-yellow, like his hair.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that this was a uniform."

Uzu grinned and wordlessly passed her a bowl of the stew. She took a bite, and found it one of the better dishes she'd sampled. It wasn't spicy, as she'd feared, but rather sweet and tangy. As she ate, Yugito noticed that the bowl was almost identical to one she had at her apartment. In fact, Yugito realized on closer inspection, it _was_ a bowl she had at her apartment. It had the chip from the time she'd dropped it.

"Did you break into my home?" Yugito asked, indignant if not furious. She didn't have much personal things lying around her home, but it was _home_, and a huge invasion of privacy.

Uzu nodded without apparent shame. "I didn't want you to lose anything important, so I sealed everything in your apartment into the scroll there. I hope you don't mind."

Yugito seemed mollified, and the pair ate the rest of the meal in comfortable silence. As Yugito handed Uzu back her bowl, she turned to examining her coat more closely. It was very comfortable, but she wondered what purpose it served. A uniform was a reflection of an organization's goals and wealth. Expensive, shinobi-only equipment, not to mention jackets that individually cost almost 3 middling A-ranked bounties, was highly intriguing.

Uzu, noticing her curiosity, smiled mischievously. "So, the cat is cursed with curiosity. I wonder, how much of a relationship do you maintain with your tenant."

Yugito shrugged, letting slide the joking comment. "Since you seem to know everything, I'll use a personal reference. It's quite like the relationship between Karui and Omoi. It mutters to itself and casually insults me, and I kick its ass into obedience. Why'll we're casually exchanging banter, care to explain _what_ the uniform is for?"

Uzu grinned in a way that made Yugito want to pity whatever poor, unfortunate soul got in his way. "A bunch of S-rank missing nin think it would be a good idea to work together to capture the Bijuu, by deadly extraction from their Jinchuuriki, and use them for the oh-so-noble goal of peace through total annihilation. Half are following orders, half have some hidden agenda, and their leader, whom I must say is one of the most sadly misguided men I've ever met, is just a puppet for the father of all megalomaniacal, holier-than-thou bastard pricks in existence. They go around calling themselves the Akatsuki."

Yugito was shocked, the Nibi more so within her mind. While the latter had all of its half-hoped for fears confirmed, the former was deeply troubled. It was almost unheard of for two S-ranked nin to even tolerate each other; nine serving under a single banner required a helluva lot of power and charisma. S-rank was really a bit misleading when regarding shinobi, simply meaning one had sufficient experience, abilities, and power to be considered for Kage rank. It could just as easily apply to a 70-year old that never lost using only ninja wire and exploding tags as an adolescent with enough juice to fight off an ANBU squad. Yugito herself was considered S-rank. Whoever this 'leader' was, they had to at least be strong enough to beat every member of his organization individually. That did not bode well.

Uzu snapped his fingers, the noise breaking Yugito out of her worrying. "Don't worry, Yugito-chan. No one will touch you, this I swear." He kindly kept a smug smile off his face as she blushed at the suffix. "As you might guess, I am setting up a counter-organization. The Red Moon shall find its way blocked by the Black Sun. You and a few others will help me stop these people, as members of Nisshoku."

Uzu suddenly got up to his feet, prompting Yugito to do the same. "I don't want to overstay my welcome. We'll be making our way out of the country over the next few days. I hope you don't mind hard work, because that massage wasn't just for satisfaction. By the time I'm through with you, I'll expect you to be able to take on any pair of Akatsuki single-handedly."

Yugito, full of energy from her nap and the meal, was all set and ready to go. She put the scroll into one of the pockets of her new coat, and followed Uzu to the cave's entrance. She had a sudden thought as to why Uzu had chosen her over A or Bee. Attempting nonchalance, Yugito asked "You said you wouldn't rape me. Did you mean that in the literal definition of the word?"

Uzu chuckled huskily in his throat. He casually reached up to tuck a strand of her hair back behind her ear. She suppressed shivers at his warm touch.

"One step at a time," he murmured. And then the two vanished into the coming night.

**

* * *

To all those who have just been eating this up and waiting for more, I once again warn you that I don't plan to get 'serious' with this fic. Truth be told, if half the lemon scenes I have planned turn out right, this will be better suited for . All the action-y plot is a combination of my natural creative instincts and my refusal to just post mindless coitus without actual character development and gradual suspense.**

**Expect a few blinding links to other games and manga, since it is far easier to poetically present an existing concept than create a new one. Heck, that's fanfiction in general! In truth, I am now fully a disciple of Eiichiro Oda and this was brought on by an urge of the muse. Then again, Naruto fanfiction, or at least the good stuff, is so much cleaner a representation of the beautiful world that Kishimoto is slowly driving to rot, I should probably just consider it a separate entity.**

**So, anyway, review, cause I love an excuse to boost my ego, and please don't antagonize over long update delays. I will stubbornly ignore them, and probably even make delays longer just to be contrary. Anyways, Ja ne!**


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